Crown Victoria Project Update - Building a Panther, Part 2

Last month we promised to document the cheap paintjob I gave my ’03 Ford Crown Victoria Police Interceptor shortly after buying it. Lies! We’ve got a major paint-themed issue coming soon, so you’ll have to read about it there. In this installment, read about things breaking and things getting fixed.

2/21

Even though these cars are incredibly reliable, with more than 130,000 miles of police duty, stuff gets worn out, and I began experiencing some annoying symptoms of things not being quite right almost immediately. The throttle was sticky when the engine warmed up, there was a strange driveline thunk on takeoff, the horn didn’t work, and it sounded like a coffee can of pennies under the floor mat under hard corners. Minor stuff mostly, well except for the thunk. That turned out to be a more expensive problem.